All photographs in these three pages were supplied by West Dunbartonshire Community
Payback Team. When a sentence includes hours of Community Service this is one place
where those man-hours were put to good use.

Where individuals can be recognised, they are either supervisors or clients who have
given permission for their photograph to be shown. In some photographs it appears
that all work is done with hood up. This is because the teams were warned that a
photograph was to be taken. Some clients turned their backs to the camera, others
raised their hoods.

Many of the clients took a great pride in their work. One young lad was heard to
remark, pointing to a finished section, “I built that path.” No matter that their
were a dozen others and much background work, he took ownership of that path, and
possibly for the first time in his life, had an achievement that he could show to
others and have pride in.

There was also the story of a young lad who appeared for service one Wednesday morning.
He knew that Tuesdays and Thursdays were his days but he had nothing else to do so
came along to help. This tale will not please the “flog ‘em, hang ‘em” brigade but
for those who see Community Service as a way back into work, it is heartening.

It was comments like these which encouraged Justice Secretary Kenny McAskill to visit
and to see the work of the team for himself. You can read about the his visit here.